BP Unfiltered

The Weakest Of The Weak

The votes have been tabulated, and five nominees have been deemed worthy of enshrinement in the Hall of Famously Weak Arguments. Here they are in descending order of support:

“You can’t know how good he was unless you saw him play.”

By a wide margin, voters chose this most subjective of arguments as the weakest of the bunch. With so much objective evidence available to judge players over time, there’s no need to rely on the vagaries of inexpert observation to determine whether Jack Morris was a truly great pitcher.

“He’s one of only a small number of players to reach this random collection of stat thresholds.”

Bacon is bacon. Mayonnaise is mayonnaise. Having properties that allow you to be described as both bacon and mayonnaise does not somehow make you better than very good bacon or very good mayonnaise. Or, to put it another way, blends are fine, but they can't really compare to a great single malt.

“Slow players that draw walks merely clog the bases.”

We all knew Dusty’s utter misunderstanding of the value inherent in avoiding outs was clearly a first ballot Hall of Famer, and BP voters have now branded it as such.

I'm not sure how much I like #2. Granted, I do hate the random category collections - "He was one of only three players to hit 17 home runs, steal 23 bases and have more than 84 RBIs every year in the 15-year period from 1977 to 1991" so I guess it makes sense to hate it, but I also think that players that are genuinely good at multiple things deserve more recognition and acclaim than they currently get.